Tetherd Cow Ahead

You may remember that in my post about the Coming of the Robots a little while back I talked about Hiroshi Ishiguro’s actroids and the inventor’s attempt to give his automatons a realistic human appearance. I penned the words:

…the closer these things come to having the semblance of humanness, the greater is my desire to punch them.

As I wrote in that post, my feeling is that there is something more disconcerting about the almost human appearance of these robots than there would be about having a clumsy metal quite obviously artificial ‘Robbie’ as a manservant.

Well I discovered today that there is in fact some interesting thinking devoted to exactly this idea, and even better, a cool term.

It is called The Uncanny Valley.

The Uncanny Valley hypothesis was advanced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori and basically states that, as robots develop and become increasingly ‘human’ in appearance, humans start to find it easier to accept and interact with them. However, there comes a certain point beyond which acceptance gives way, quite abruptly, to revulsion. Then (Mori’s hypothesis asserts) as the facsimile approaches even greater realism (that is, the ‘ideal’ human form) acceptance increases once more to ‘human’ level tolerance.

If you viewed the videos of Ishiguro’s actroids you’ll understand exactly what the Uncanny Valley idea encompasses – these robots are creepy and disturbing and there’s no way I’d want one lurking in my house after dark. Or before dark for that matter. So much so that I’m even wary of Mori’s use of the term ‘Valley’ in his hypothesis – from where I stand it looks more like an Uncanny Grand Canyon.

Mori has been criticised on this very point – there is of course no evidence so far that robots will become sufficiently lifelike to make the Uncanny Valley anything more than an Uncanny Precipice.

In fact Mori’s whole concept has been called into question by commentators such as US roboticist and sculptor David Hanson and Swiss artificial intelligence scientist Dario Floreano* who go so far to say that it is pseudoscience. Well, it may be true that there is little actual science behind the idea of the Uncanny Valley as yet, but to my mind at least it makes good common sense that we instinctively don’t lend our trust to something that could be human but also might not be. It’s not a new concept to humans in any way – it has been the subject of paranoid science fiction for decades, and before that an idea that surfaces in folk tales and myths as far back as we have records.

As I said in We Are the Robots, when we used to have the old electronic ‘cut-up’ voices on telephone answering services, it was clear that we were dealing with machines. In my opinion, as superficial semblance to machines decreases (in these ‘voice robots’ at least) then we expect, quite correctly I think, that their behaviour should increase in realism at the same rate or better. And as much as I respect the obviously informed opinions of people such as Hanson and Floreano I think that the Uncanny Valley will persist until such times as robots are indistinguishable from humans.

In other words, when the androids get as convincingly lifelike as Rachel in Blade Runner, then maybe The Uncanny Valley might start to look more like a Grassy Meadow.

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*Floreano has an MA in Visual Psychophysics. Oh, how much do I want one of those!

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A lot like life, really.

The little Commentary discussion we’ve been having about humour here and at one of my favourite hangs in the blog-o-sphere The Joey Polanski Show over the last couple of days, has prompted me to consider something that I never thought I’d find myself doing on The Cow, and that is attempting to explain something from the point of view of The Cow’s funny bone.

As you know, my mind turns to musing from time to time, about matters big and small, and when I’m not dreaming about helium-filled donuts, concocting perfumes that Satan might wear, or excoriating Scientologists, I sometimes find myself pondering the really BIG questions of the universe. Like ‘What is it that makes us laugh?’

Joey’s post a haff-dozn jokes I wishd I coud take creddit for attracted a whole swag of japes from the Polanski Show cast, most of the gags pretty darn funny, a couple of them brilliantly so, some of them definitely on the long-paddock side of politically correct, and a couple yer usual run-of-the-mill pub jokes. I posted a few of my own favourites but I was reluctant to put up my most favourite, The Bee Joke, because I know from experience that about half the people I tell it to just don’t find it funny. At all.

So I told Joey I’d put it up on The Cow instead, and corral the humour in its own stockyard, so to speak. In the Comments on The Bee Joke, Joey told what I will call The Centurion Joke as a riposte, and, it is (in my mind anyway) exactly in the same vein of humour as The Bee Joke.

I never really feel the need to defend or elaborate on my humour here on The Cow. After all, it is my joint and if you’re here drinking my beer I expect you to laugh at my jokes. Even if it is just out of politeness. Sometimes I know that I really do make you laugh (mostly because you tell me), but very often I don’t have a clue how funny anyone really thinks my writing is*. And since I like The Bee Joke a whole lot, I’m pretty obviously not the best judge of what other people find funny…

Of course, Tetherd Cow Ahead isn’t really meant to a repository for just my sense of humour, but because I find humour one of the most important things in my life it is inevitable that The Cow, being a fairly good representation of my character (I think), will end up with its fair share of gags. And, the current banter at The Polanski Show notwithstanding, mostly I try to keep my shtick as original as I can. In some cases the laugh-quotient has largely been reasonable as far as I can judge (like my ‘God Creates‘ series and my Annunciations), but there has been one notable lead balloon in the Cow Comedy Cavalcade, and yes, those of you who are regulars have spotted it already: ‘Safety Craig‘.

Sadly, no-one really ‘got’ Safety Craig. It may be just the way I told it, but I think probably it’s because the humour in Safety Craig is kinda like The Bee Joke and The Centurion Joke. And like those two gags, I doubt I can really explain Safety Craig, but I’m going to give it a shot:

For a number of years while I was living in Sydney I used to see a handyman truck around my neighbourhood – ‘Jim’s Mowing’ I think was the name of the business. It featured a do-it-yourself low-rent tone dropout picture of Jim and some ‘handpainted’ style text: ‘Jim’s Mowing: Ph: 12 34 2323’ or something. I just used to assume that ‘Jim’ was some local guy who was a bit better organized than your average tradesman.

Well, on moving to Melbourne, I discovered that Jim lives here as well. Only, in these parts Jim has a painting business. And a pet-grooming business, a plumbing business, a fencing business, a roofing business, a tiling business and even a permaculture business. Jim is one busy guy.

As you have guessed, ‘Jim’s’ is a franchise. Only, it’s a franchise that’s trying really hard to not look like a franchise.† Now, when I figured this out, I started to look at all the other businesses around that use these ‘posterized’ generic faces combined with some homely first-name for their logos and I realized that they are all franchises! In a weird and subtle way, the Reverend A, who likes to pride himself on his high quality skepticism and incisive critical thinking had been duped by a ploy so vacuous and insipid that he is almost embarrassed to admit it!‡

And then one day, now alert to all these cleverly constructed ‘cottage industry’ style companies to-ing and fro-ing across suburban Australia (and I have no doubt across the entire entrepreneurial world) I saw a display set up in a mall for ‘Safety Dave‘.

Something went ‘ping’ in my brain.

Now I’m sure that Safety Dave’s products are all worthwhile, just as I’m sure Jim, and Bob, and Carol, and Ted, and Alice, and all those other franchise denominators provide service of fair enough quality. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be in business. But the thing that made me feel slightly unsettled was that ‘Safety Dave’ and all these other friendly chaps and chapesses weren’t actually telling the truth about themselves. Well, not so much not telling the truth as letting the customer think something about them that wasn’t exactly accurate. And Safety Dave was asking us to put our safety in his hands…

Hence the invention of ‘Safety Craig’. The point is, of course, that Safety ‘Craig’ can’t get away with being anonymous, so instead of following the instinct to ‘trust’ him, as we might with ‘Jim’ or ‘Dave’ we must make our brains wary of his advice. And his advice is the kind our parents used to offer when we were kids, and is, on the whole, pretty much good sound advice, if a little annoying. So the contrast between those two things was supposed to be funny.

Like I said. Lead balloon. But now you know.

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*I’m talking about when I’m trying to be funny, of course. I don’t count the possibly numerous occasions on which people have found my serious ponderings mirthful.

†These days Jim’s looks a fair bit more corporate, and the logo a bit more ‘stylish’ as you can see by their website, but it wasn’t always so.

‡And so you see: such is my commitment to The Cow, that I am prepared to endure public ridicule in the service of truth!

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The correct answer to The Monty Hall Problem is: Yes, you should definitely change your choice when Monty gives you the opportunity. You will improve your odds of walking away with the car from your initial 33.3% to an impressive 66.6%.

Those of you who said that your chances remain the same as they were to start with, or improve to an even 50/50, are in error. I know, it seems bizarre on the face of it: if you change your mind, your chances of winning the car are not just better, but substantially better. But how can that possibly be?

I think the best way to approach the Monty Hall Problem is like this:

First of all, remember that Monty knows what’s behind every door. This is critical.

When you make your initial random choice from Doors A,B & C, there is a 2-in-3 chance that you will pick a goat. That is, two times out of every three your first random choice would give you a goat. Are we agreed on that point? Good. Therefore, on those two times out of every three, after Monty knows your choice, he will have no option but to open the door where the other goat is (presuming, of course, that he doesn’t want to show you the door with the car). Logically, therefore, Monty Hall allows you to know two thirds of the time where the car is† (that is, behind the door you didn’t choose). So you should always change your choice when he gives you the opportunity to do so.

It’s infuriatingly counter-intuitive. When I was first presented with the Monty Hall Problem I was convinced the choice was a mere 1/2 and therefore it made no difference if I changed or not. But the maths don’t lie. If the Word of the Cow isn’t good enough for you, go to the maths department at the University of California & San Diego and conduct yourself some practical trials. If you always change your choice when given the opportunity you will walk away with the car more often than not. You can also see the accumulated trials of everyone who has done the experiment before you: it’s inarguable – the best strategy is to swap doors when Monty gives you the choice!

Why do we have such difficulty with the Monty Hall Problem? I think the answer is twofold – firstly our brains are not naturally great at interpreting statistics, and secondly, The Monty Hall Problem is not strictly a problem of maths.

Statistically we can all see quite clearly that the chance of choosing the car initially is 1-in-3. We then tend to think that by being shown an ‘irrelevant’ door and given two remaining options there is an equal chance that either may hide the prize. This is in fact true; in a strict statistical sense, taken in isolation, the prize may indeed be behind either remaining door. But Monty (unwittingly, we must suppose) is not giving you that kind of choice. He is instead giving you the opportunity to change your mind about your first choice which is an entirely different thing altogether. And that opportunity is informed by the fact that Monty knows something about what’s behind the doors that you don’t.

In other words, a purely statistical experiment is muddied up by the fact that the experimenter knows something about the outcome and stirs that into the experiment, irrevocably removing the random element.

Or, put another way, if Monty doesn’t know what’s behind each of the doors (or, alternately, if you don’t tell Monty which door you’ve initially chosen) then the Monty Hall Show plays out exactly as your intuition might suggest. (Of course, if Monty doesn’t know what’s behind the doors, in all possibility he may reveal the car when he opens a (necessarily) random door to show you what’s behind it, immediately increasing your odds of walking away with the prize to 100%).

The Monty Hall Problem is a good reminder of how easily it is for the human brain to be lead astray, and why our intuitive grasp of things is not a reliable indicator of the way they really are…

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†Of course, on the one-in-three times you choose the car on your first go, Monty can show you either of two doors with a goat, in which case your chance of getting the car if you swap doors is merely 50/50. But that’s only for one out of every three times you randomly choose correctly on the first pick!

Correction courtesy of din.

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A couple of days back I was reading an article about statistical method in experiments in primate behaviour and the writer mentioned The Monty Hall Problem as a possible source of unintentional introduced error or experimenter bias.

Now The Monty Hall Problem is a fascinating mathematical conundrum, and since I know those kinds of things are always of interest to Cow Readers, I thought those of you who are not familiar with this puzzle might like to exercise your mental muscles on it.

The Monty Hall Problem goes like this:

You are on a game show with your host Monty Hall who is offering you the chance to walk away with the Car of Your Dreams. He shows you three doors, A, B & C.

“The Car of Your Dreams is behind one of these doors,” he says, “The other two doors each conceal a goat. As your Games Master, only I know which door conceals which object. Now, please choose a door to claim your prize!’

You choose your door. You tell Monty “I have chosen Door B!”

“Well done!” he says. “I knew you were a contestant of superior ability! But before we open your door, I’m going to open one of the other doors and show you what’s behind it.” He opens Door C to reveal a goat. “Now that you’ve seen what’s behind Door C,” he says, “I’m going to give you a special opportunity to stick with your chosen door, Door B, or change your choice to the other remaining door, Door A. I’ll give you ten seconds to have a think about it!”

Here’s the question: To win the car, is there any advantage in changing your mind and swapping from your initial choice of Door B to Door A?

Answers on my desk by end of class.

Violet Towne and I were in inner city Melbourne this week when we were accosted by person who might be these days termed ‘height-challenged’ but in the time of my less politically correct childhood would gave been called a dwarf.

Personally, I can’t see much of a problem with the term ‘dwarf’. Before Lord of the Rings the logical cultural link anyone was likely to make with that term was with the happy chaps that whistled while they worked, made squillions from their diamond mine and were shacked up with a spunky chick. When I was a teenager hanging out in the theatre, we had a chap who fit that image perfectly. Well, if you included a fondness for sherry and imagined the local newspaper packing room was a diamond mine. In any event, he certainly hit it off well with the young ladies…

But I digress.

The short fellow who confronted us in town seemed a little agitated and with little preamble reeled off a story about his wallet having been stolen and how he was going to have to make phone calls to cancel all his credit cards and how he needed some money to get a train to his home in the Dandenong Ranges (an area just on the outskirts of Melbourne).

Now, as cynical as you all know me to be, I am still inclined at first flush to cut people the benefit of the doubt. I gave the guy a bill. Not enough for his train fare all the way, but I thought it would help him out. It has to be said: he snaffled the cash without so much as a backward glance and was on his way.

Violet Towne, who is possibly a little more street savvy than I am, wasn’t about to part with any of her hard-earned change for someone she pegged pretty quickly as a pan-handler (I noticed that she kept a tight grip on her purse as the exchange took place). Reflecting on it as the little man zipped off into the crowd, I couldn’t help but agree with her; it did seem fairly likely that Shorty had peddled that particular story more than once.

“Oh well,” I said, “I guess if he feels compelled to ask people for a handout he’s somewhat worse off than we are.”

The following morning this text conversation takes place between me & VT:

VT (on her way to work on the train): Hey! The dwarf just got on the train! He’s dressed in a suit!

Reverend: See! I was right!

VT: But he got on at Heatherdale. That’s a long way from Dandenongs.

Reverend: Whaddya expect? You were too mean to give him the extra he needed to get home.

The jury will probably remain forever out on the truth of the matter, but I figure that this is a Christmas Parable that can be read in whichever way you are inclined to view the Season.